First Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions
Abraham Lincoln
April 6, 1858
All creation is a mine, and every man, a miner.
The whole earth, and all
within
it,
upon
it, and
round about
it, including
himself
, in his physical, moral, and intellectual nature,
and his susceptibilities, are the infinitely various "leads" from which, man, from the first, was to dig out his destiny.
In the beginning, the mine was unopened, and the miner stood
naked
, and
knowledgeless
, upon it.
Fishes, birds, beasts, and creeping things, are not miners, but
feeders
and
lodgers
, merely. Beavers build houses; but they build
them in nowise differently, or better now, than they did, five thousand years ago. Ants, and honey-bees, provide food for winter;
but just in the
same way
they did, when Solomon referred the sluggard to them as patterns of prudence.
1- Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the only one who
improves
his workmanship. This improvement, he effects
by
Discoveries
, and
Inventions
. His first important discovery was the fact that he was naked; and his first invention was the fig-
leaf-apron. This simple article—the apron—made of leaves, seems to have been the origin of
clothing
—the one thing for which
nearly half of the toil and care of the human race has ever since been expended. The most important improvement ever made in
connection with clothing, was the invention of
spinning
and
weaving
. The spinning jenny, and power-loom, invented in modern
times, though great
improvements
, do not,
as inventions
, rank with the ancient arts of spinning and weaving. Spinning and
weaving brought into the department of clothing such abundance and variety of material. Wool, the hair of several species of
animals, hemp, flax, cotton, silk, and perhaps other articles, were all suited to it, affording garments not only adapted to wet and
dry, heat and cold, but also susceptible of high degrees of ornamental finish. Exactly
when
, or
where
, spinning and weaving
originated is not known. At the first interview of the Almighty with Adam and Eve, after the fall, He made "coats of skins, and
clothed them" Gen: 3-21.
The Bible makes no other allusion to clothing,
before
the flood. Soon
after
the deluge Noah’s two sons covered him with
a
garment
; but of what
material
the garment was made is not mentioned. Gen. 9-23.
Abraham mentions "
thread
" in such connection as to indicate that spinning and weaving were in use in his day—Gen. 14.23—
and soon after, reference to the art is frequently made. "
Linen breeches
, ["] are mentioned,—Exod. 28.42—and it is said "all the
women that were wise hearted, did
spin
with their hands" (35-25) and, "all the women whose hearts stirred them up in
wisdom,
spun
goat’s hair" (35-26). The work of the "
weaver
" is mentioned— (35-35). In the book of Job, a very old book, date
not exactly known, the "
weavers shuttle
" is mentioned.
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